2 Sep r 1809

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch. 18 Mischief of Idol worship

§.{3}. King’s interest. 2. power

Elogiums mischievous

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But these elogiums, not to speak of their bearing so frequently on the part of the

object not any determinate ground, nor on the part of the eulogist any generous

/really social/ and honest motive, such is the constant tendency – such is very

frequently their effect, that against their influence a man whose social affections

are capable of extending themselves beyond the garment which wraps up the individual

– a man in whose bosom the constitution and the people whose all[?] depends upon it

are in any degree the objects of regard /affection/ can not be too much upon his

guard against its sinister influence.

Under an absolute monarchy such exercises may be not only innocent but beneficial:

be he what he may /ever so mischievous/ their tendency is in some measure to sooth

and soften the character of the Monarch, at any rate to reconcile the people to their

fate.

But under the British Constitution /English government/, the very existence of the

constitution depends upon jealousy, and upon the unceasing alertness of that

jealousy: the unfitness the radiant and irremediable unfitness of the King, as King,

to govern to govern in any thing the few exceptions as above alone exempted[?] is the

fundamental principle of it.

So good a King! can we do better than to be governed by him? to be governed by him

in every thing? So excellent a King, can any man be more fit – can any man be so fit

as he for the so difficult task of government? for a task for which the purest[?]

probity is not more than necessary

The King so good, and the country therefore to be governed by him? No: if he /the

King/ have but so much as the wish to govern, this wish, to the extent in which he

suffers himself to indulge in it, is itself a proof of his not being, of his not

being to the only purpose here in question to the most material of all purposes, a

good one.